Curious on opinion. Smn or Mch. Which would you pick?

[Kicoe]

I'll remind you that raiding is a minority of the game. Not everyone raids, not all dungeons are raids. Raids are not required to progress through the main scenario, nor are they available in the roulettes. And you'll ignore it because that's all that you think is important while ignoring the other 95% of the time.

Raiding might be a minority of the game, however you have to accept the fact that jobs are balanced around raids, not around four man dungeons or solo content.

[Aiselia]

Raiding might be a minority of the game, however you have to accept the fact that jobs are balanced around raids, not around four man dungeons or solo content.

Which they shouldn't be. They should be balanced around the majority of the game. Conditions can be put on raids that don't affect the rest of the game. For example, force a one-per-raid class restriction if they're so scared about people stacking classes. Or how about for every DPS of X attack type, the resistance to that attack type is increased? 0 for one, 10% for two, 25% for three, 50% for four. Stack 4 bards? The boss now has an extra 50% piercing resistance. If they want to enforce class diversity, punishing an entire class is not the way to go.

How much would balance really be thrown out of whack if the 10% weapon damage hit across the board for Bards was instead shifted into an extra 10% DPS loss while playing songs? That'd be balanced for if/when it's actually needed, but not hurt Bards that don't even raid.

Accepting bad design does not excuse it from being bad design.

[Minorinz]

I'm not. You asked two questions. First, who can buff the entire party, and second, who can restore everyone's MP and TP.

Those two questions are relative/relevant to each other. Are we just wasting time now?

I answered the first because it's an easy answer. I ignored the second because it's a biased question that limits scope and asserts your own subjective opinion of how useful they are as an important factor.

Yes, because it's an easy question, however anything you can't answer has to be subjective or biased. oh lol.

Bards can increase damage of casters. NIN can increase damage of slashers. MNK can increase Blunt damage (and decrease INT while they're at it). DRG can increase damage of Piercing. Foe's is, therefore, not "unique" as a damage increase utility because it's just another thing that increases a specific subset's damage. And is objectively less useful on a boss as it won't have (near) 100% uptime as compared to everyone else's since they'd be part of their rotation.

I would love it if foes was 100% up so then I can easily be on melee's level, but I doubt SE wants it that way. For casters to have the luxury of being ranged and almost top dps if not top dps all the time, yeah no. Also foes is 20% when battle voiced on short duration fights. It's a pretty good burst, and since we're talking about low level content and not raiding content this should be satisfactory.

Please don't forget that foes get applied directly. It doesn't require the bard to add a debuff on the target manually or waste a gcd every 10 secs, so basically it can be applied on multiple targets at once as well- unlike melee buffs. Well what do you know, casters are so good at AOE this makes perfect sense!! Foes last around 68-69 secs and scales with bard's mana and it is fully charged around 125 seconds.

Question marks indicate the end of a question. If that wasn't the end of your question, you did it wrong.

depends on how perceptive you are.

Subjectively.

Which is more useful in things that aren't raids, though?

A TP song that isn't getting played because the fights aren't lasting long enough to play them, or a debuff on the boss to make the boss take more damage, or a buff that increases everyone's crit chance?

I'll remind you that raiding is a minority of the game. Not everyone raids, not all dungeons are raids. Raids are not required to progress through the main scenario, nor are they available in the roulettes. And you'll ignore it because that's all that you think is important while ignoring the other 95% of the time.

Why is it TP not foes? Crit chance is crit chance and it is pure RNG. If you are implying people would favor a drg for utility reasons because of a 15% crit chance, then those people need some serious help. Most people care about defensive utility not offensive utility because you can't be offensive if you are dead, also this is pretty situational during raids. Monks for example were making a huge difference with dragon kick, the 10% INT debuff, but even then monk was never as important as a bard for progression. I mean it makes me wonder, what are you expecting bard to get? a debuffing/buffing utility similar to drg/nin/mnk? they have foes and it's pretty awesome , as a caster, I wouldn't mind a permanent 10% debuff on all targets. In fact, I would love it. Sadly, that wouldn't have much of an impact and to be honest, nobody cares if there isn't a specific type of melee in a party because of their debuffing/buffing utility, it is a nice bonus but it is not really necessary. Drg already has a piercing buff, if bard gets the piercing buff it'll buff drg some more so that's not viable.

That's nice. And largely irrelevant to anything I've said.

It's simple really. Bard's utility is op and it is needed for progression. Let's see what savage brings.

[Kicoe]

Which they shouldn't be. They should be balanced around the majority of the game. Conditions can be put on raids that don't affect the rest of the game. For example, force a one-per-raid class restriction if they're so scared about people stacking classes. Or how about for every DPS of X attack type, the resistance to that attack type is increased? 0 for one, 10% for two, 25% for three, 50% for four. Stack 4 bards? The boss now has an extra 50% piercing resistance. If they want to enforce class diversity, punishing an entire class is not the way to go.

How much would balance really be thrown out of whack if the 10% weapon damage hit across the board for Bards was instead shifted into an extra 10% DPS loss while playing songs? That'd be balanced for if/when it's actually needed, but not hurt Bards that don't even raid.

Accepting bad design does not excuse it from being bad design.

If they would lower the skillcap of Bard, which I guess is the class you are talking about mainly in here, and adjust the class around four man dungeons the class would be way over the top in actual raid content. If SE would adjust Bards damage so it would be more suited to the average player who is content with his four man dungeons, can you imagine what players would be able to do that are able to absolutely maximize any given class? In that case, assuming melees and casters would be left untouched for whatever reason just to throw the average Bard a bone, there would be no need to bring a melee or caster anymore.

As it is right now, I've seen very impressive Bards that put out awesome damage (see A1 and A1 for example) and while doing so they know exactly when which song is needed, which is incredibly nice to have in actual "hard" content. Pretty sure Bard is fine as it is right now, solo or group play.

[Aiselia]

there would be no need to bring a melee or caster anymore.

So... you just chose to ignore the part about applying conditions to raids to make there be a reason to bring them, then? I see.

Oh, you also chose to ignore the question about how much balance would be lost if they shifted the 10% weapon damage loss to extra damage loss during songs so that we're not punished for having the songs and then punished again for playing them.

So uh... why bother quoting what I say if you aren't replying to what I say?

Are we just wasting time now?

Of course we are. You'll never convince me and I'll never convince you. I thought that should be obvious.

depends on how perceptive you are.

No, I'm pretty sure that how punctuation works is rather objective.

Why is it TP not foes?

Because we're talking about non-raids. Y'know, things like soloing or roulette dungeons. Things where you won't always have a caster.

I mean, I could have said "A song that increases magic damage when you may not even have a caster because you don't control roulette groups".

If you are implying people would favor a drg for utility reasons because of a 15% crit chance

For someone who griped about me missing context, you certainly seem to have forgotten that. We're talking about non-raids, remember? Where either you don't control the makeup of your group (roulette) or things like TP/MP songs are not needed because fights don't last long enough.

Would I favour a DRG who does more damage and can increase damage of the entire party plus the healing of the healer (Extra crit chance on a SCH makes for lovely Adloq shields that let me pop into Cleric stance for a while longer) over a BRD who can refill TP that won't need refilling, refill MP that won't need refilling, or potentially buff caster damage if we have a caster or they happen to play it during a time the healer has a chance to attack?

Yes.

you can't be offensive if you are dead

"but why would anyone jump off a cliff to begin with?"

what are you expecting bard to get?

What am I expecting? Nothing.

What am I hoping for? Their play style back, and hopefully equalized weapon damage, even if it means moving that loss of weapon damage to the penalty for playing songs.

Drg already has a piercing buff, if bard gets the piercing buff it'll buff drg some more so that's not viable.

Actually, they'd most likely not stack, like how Dancing Edge and Storm's Eye don't.

[Kicoe]

So... you just chose to ignore the part about applying conditions to raids to make there be a reason to bring them, then? I see.

Oh, you also chose to ignore the question about how much balance would be lost if they shifted the 10% weapon damage loss to extra damage loss during songs so that we're not punished for having the songs and then punished again for playing them.

So uh... why bother quoting what I say if you aren't replying to what I say?

Let me say that again, SE, or for that matter any MMORPG dev will balance jobs/classes around the hardest content, it doesn't work the other way around. That's why you wont have class conditions for raids that wouldn't apply anywhere else. Also, Bards that don't raid, when do you see them sing Ballad or Paeon again aka getting "punished"?

[Sleigh]

Which they shouldn't be. They should be balanced around the majority of the game. Conditions can be put on raids that don't affect the rest of the game. For example, force a one-per-raid class restriction if they're so scared about people stacking classes. Or how about for every DPS of X attack type, the resistance to that attack type is increased? 0 for one, 10% for two, 25% for three, 50% for four. Stack 4 bards? The boss now has an extra 50% piercing resistance. If they want to enforce class diversity, punishing an entire class is not the way to go.

How much would balance really be thrown out of whack if the 10% weapon damage hit across the board for Bards was instead shifted into an extra 10% DPS loss while playing songs? That'd be balanced for if/when it's actually needed, but not hurt Bards that don't even raid.

Accepting bad design does not excuse it from being bad design.

BRD is high-tier for the non-raid stuff, please enlighten me how having some of the highest burst and AoE, even with lower WD, is "punished."

10% extra damage with a bigger hit to songs, you would have to completely rebalance all DPS to do this. Every single one of them. Right now BRD does add more damage to a good group rather than being canned for ANY melee/caster, I've seen 1400 A1, I've seen higher than 1,000 for all of A1-4. I don't think you truly realize what's so strong about BRD ... it's how they translate into fights - not necessarily the movement aspect, but everything about them (minus WM's new semi-mobility loss) is strong in real fights.

- 12s Misery's End, no other class gets that. That by itself skews the dummy <-> real fight barrier.
- Ranged, on the very high end of multi-DoTing, which means they are add slayers and gain more from adds than most classes, and most encounters do have adds.
- Bursty. This is strong in its own right - you'll have encounters where there are constant phase shifts and breaks, like T9, where a truly skilled BRD will be nearly if not completely topping the parse because they're constantly gaining more strength from downtime than other classes.
- Still pretty dang mobile. More mobile than the majority of classes. The only forced movement/disconnect that truly hurts DPS now is having to move during an Iron Jaws recast, everything else is minor compared to a melee disconnecting or BLM moving.

BRD has every fight advantage. Because of these they do frighteningly close to melee in real fights as is, and then on top of these things you've got Foe's, TP, and MP regen. They're so strong and I don't think you even know it, and you want ... BRD/MCH to do the same damage as everyone else by default? Yeah because then they'll beat everyone by 10% in real fights, and you'll stack DRG BRD BRD BRD unless you put into place those silly class restriction ideas you have. So we're going to punish statics that already punish themselves by stacking classes? Or we just straight up increase BRD DPS so it can be less support, more DPS, because of some completely-unrelated-to-balance morals? I don't understand.

[Aiselia]

Let me say that again, SE, or for that matter any MMORPG dev will balance jobs/classes around the hardest content, it doesn't work the other way around.

Restating your point doesn't make it good design. It's lazy design to just nerf a class across the board and not think about alternate ways that won't affect the majority.

Also, Bards that don't raid, when do you see them sing Ballad or Paeon again aka getting "punished"?

100% of the time, because they take a 10% weapon damage hit just for having the songs.

Which is my point. Which I thought was clear. If they don't play the songs, why should they have 10% less damage for having them?

[Kicoe]

Restating your point doesn't make it good design. It's lazy design to just nerf a class across the board and not think about alternate ways that won't affect the majority.



100% of the time, because they take a 10% weapon damage hit just for having the songs.

Which is my point. Which I thought was clear. If they don't play the songs, why should they have 10% less damage for having them?

If you don't like the design and call it bad it's not my issue, it seems to be an issue on your end. Also, honest question: are you aware of what a Bard is capable in terms of damage output?

[Aiselia]

Also, honest question: are you aware of what a Bard is capable in terms of damage output?

Yes, I am.

How could I not be, since everyone throws parses at me as if the high end players are the ones people are basing their prejudices on when they get a Bard in a roulette?

It's never "Oh, I saw So-and-So in this raid and he did awesome DPS, this run will be super fast!" It's "Oh, a Bard. Well, I wanted to take an extra half hour to complete this."

And then I start tanking the trash because they didn't think they needed to worry about AOE threat for some reason.